The story behind the FDA raid of Nootropics Depot

That is not an objective description... This is a more objective description by the FDA and DOJ: https://www.justice.gov/usao-nh/pr/arizona-company-and-ceo-plead-guilty-distribution-drugs-not-approved-fda-and-will-pay-24

Even that is nowhere near all of it, but the one you posted had politics come into play late in the game. Let me explain. I explain a ton in the podcast, but I can add more information here for everyone.

We were raided in December 7th 2021 by over 50 armed federal agents from as many as 6 agencies. They surrounded our building with black SUVs early in the morning, and busted into our facility. They held my team at gunpoint; even screaming at one of my warehouse guys to "drop the fucking box!" while pointing a gun at him... a box full of printer toner. It was crazy. Let's discuss these press releases first.

Well fast forward two years, and I decided to plead guilt to a strict liability misdemeanor to bring it all to a close. It was two years of the US government trying to put me in prison for a long time, so everyone just wanted it over. I flew out to New Hampshire and sat down with a bunch of people from the FDA and DOJ. It was a great meeting with them, and I explained my position on everything to a group of them that came from all over the US. A lot of attention and resources was put into our case, so there were FDA and DOJ people there from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, and Washington DC. It was in this really cool looking art deco federal building in Concord New Hampshire, and we went into a big room with a massive conference table. This building and the rooms in it were clearly built to subconsciously evoke the power of the organization behind it. I walk in and the other side of the table is filled with federal agents and lawyers from the government... people from the most powerful government in the history of humanity who were trying to put me in prison for a long time. Think about how that felt. I can barely even describe it to people. You really have to be in a situation like that to feel the gravity of it. However, I did what I always do and smiled and shook everyone's hand, and said it was nice to finally meet them. It really was. I wanted to sit down and talk with them since day one. As we sat down, one of the agents started out by stating the date of the raid, and I made a joke and said: "A date that will live in infamy!" That's because the date was December 7th, the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbor. I felt it was pretty poignant, and immediately I felt the tone in the room shift a bit. I could see that people's guards went down slightly, and we were able to jump right into a very long, but very productive, conversation with the federal government. The fear and weight that was on me over the previous two years seemed to fall away, and I was just myself. I went to work doing what I seem to do best: explaining my position on things from my own perspective. That's exactly what I did, and the more I spoke, the more the faces on the other side started to change.

I never wanted to be an enemy of my own government. I said that from the day I started this company. Admittedly, I was a bit more Libertarian at the start. My position always was that people should be free to do whatever they want to their own bodies, but that they should not be taken advantage of by unscrupulous vendors in the process. People should be able to make informed decisions for themselves as adults. However, they need access to properly tested and standardized things to do it. I've been a biohacker and supplement enthusiast for a long time now; longer than most people here have even known about nootropics. I myself bought from the available vendors at the time, and I myself was taken advantage of by shady vendors. I bought nootropics that were mislabeled other compounds. I bought nootropics that were literally dripping with residual solvent left over in them, or cat hair in the Mylar bags with the powder. I saw how bad or non-existent the lab testing and quality control was back then, and I set out to change it. I set out to be the one person advocating for consumers for higher standards, and trying to educate people on what they should demand from vendors. I called the bad actors in the industry out, and tried to force positive change. Anyone here can go through my post history and see it all. It's all open for everyone to read, and I invite everyone to do just that. See what I have been doing to help this industry for over a decade now. Unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished. My advocacy for the rights of consumers, my staunch position that vendors need to take science and lab testing seriously, and my consistent calling out of the bad actors that I saw ultimately lead to the FDA raiding our facility that day.

A few months prior to us getting raided, two competitors that I had called out for selling fake nootropics entered into sealed plea agreement with the government. They themselves had been raided prior, and were facing prison time for what they had done. These individuals then entered into plea agreements that the courts have sealed, and kept sealed ever since. Obviously because of the nature of the court seal, I can't 100% confirm the facts, but it is pretty clear to me what happened. These individuals pointed their fingers at me, and told the government we were doing things that we were not. These statements were likely used to get a grand jury to authorize the raid on our facility. These guys hated me. They hated that I called them out for being frauds, and selling fake nootropics that were hurting people. They probably blamed me for their own raids, even though I was not involved at all. However, it is clear their statements triggered the government to come in when they did. I can't express the feel and tone of the raid at first. They clearly thought they were coming into something different than they were. This was like a cartel raid at the start. However, after about an hour or two, the demeanor of the agents onsite at our facility changed. They didn't enter a facility that looked like the image they had painted in their heads. They entered one of the cleanest, most organized, and most well-run cGMP certified and ISO accredited facilities in not just the nootropics industry, but the supplement industry as a whole. How do I know this? After everyone calmed down, the FDA regulatory people onsite that day started to make comments to my team. They said that we should be proud of our facility, and how clean and organized it was. They brought some mobile lab equipment to test things they found that day, but after going into our lab and speaking to my team of scientists, they literally said there was no point in filed testing... that they would take samples back to their central lab, but that they knew what we said was in the bottles was what was in there. So obviously I haven't been to a whole lot of other raids like this, but I can't imagine many people get complimented by the government on their facility while the raid is happened. We did... so we got that going for us, which is nice. Back to the plea.

So in 2023, after I had my meeting with the government, both sides decided that it was better if we concluded the case amicably. I agreed to plea to a strict liability misdemeanor information. An information is when you decide to plea to a lesser charge before the government even charges you with a crime. I flew back out to Concord New Hampshire, went in front of a judge, and plead guilty to a 21 USC § 333(a) strict liability misdemeanor. Once again I had friendly talks with both the FDA and DOJ while I was there. I'd link the lovely letter the DOJ sent to the judge, but I am not sure I am allowed to post that one. However, they stated that it was clear that I did not act with fraudulent intent, and that we were holding things to high standards. I appreciated how the AUSA characterized the situation in his letter. It was objective, fair, and balanced. That's when the press release I linked above was put out. It was objective and stuck to the facts. Now what most people don't know is that in the federal system, you enter into a plea agreement, then plea guilty in front of a judge. Then sentencing is set for 90 days after you change your plea. That's exactly what happened here. I said goodbye to my new friends a the government, and said I would see them again in three months for sentencing. This is where things went off the rails a bit, and politics seemed to get involved.

In the three months between the change of plea and sentencing, some shit went down that I once again got roped into. Some of you might know, but many of you might not, that shitheads were selling tianeptine in gas stations as liquid shots. Some of these shots had tianeptine, kratom, and phenibut in the same shots... These were clearly intended to get people high. Well NPR and CNN ran a story on them calling it "gas station heroin." This is when the bad press started to get people's eyes on things. Multiple congressmen wrote letters to the FDA asking what they were doing about this tianeptine problem. As you might know, when politics get involved with bureaucracy, things turn weird. What was going on in the tianeptine side of things when these congressmen wrote the FDA? Well there was little old me sitting there waiting for what I thought would be an uneventful sentencing based on the plea that I signed. However, I seemed to get caught in the crosshairs of this moment. When I flew back out to Concord for sentencing, everything seemed to go smoothly. I once again was smiling and joking with the FDA agents and people from the DOJ. The judge accepted the nice letter from the AUSA, and accepted the plea as signed. However, I did see a weird look on one of the faces of someone at the FDA that made me think something was up. Sure enough, the moment I left that courtroom that press release went out.

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